


turn it around, get a rewrite

by harbour lights (epeolotry)



Series: first you get close, then you get worried [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 02:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4287207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epeolotry/pseuds/harbour%20lights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With a melodramatic roll of the eyes, she took him in altogether, his dripping frame, his crinkled smile, and his worn green eyes looking to her plaintively. And for the smallest fraction of a second, her breath hitched.</p>
            </blockquote>





	turn it around, get a rewrite

**Author's Note:**

> this'd require extensive background info if i explained fully, so the tldr version is; circumstances lead india to crash at england's place for a while (e.g. a couple of months) & it becomes a marriage of convenience of sorts. 
> 
> india/england.  
> domesticity nonsense, emotionally constipated nitwits, and some feelings. 
> 
> (sonali is india)

“Get inside, Arthur! Arthur—oh, you imbecile— _Arthur!_ ”

“Yes, _dearest_ \--”

 

The man’s voice, so enduringly _wry_ , muffled at first, became clearer as he burst through the door. He stood at the ragged welcome doormat, sopping wet with two armfuls of groceries, his keys jangling between his teeth.

She went to confront him at the door, scooping an arm’s worth of groceries off his hands, eyeing him with thinly veiled amusement, waiting patiently for an explanation, with a tapping foot and folded arms. So, with as much patience as Sonali could muster when it came to Arthur.

 

“Sonali! Traffic was murder, I must tell you—“

 

                                                                                    “You took the tube!”

 

“Yes, well, the walk from the _station_ was murder—“

 

He motioned hopelessly to his soaked exterior, looking to her for a show of humanity! Of sympathy? 

With a melodramatic roll of the eyes, she took him in altogether, his dripping frame, his crinkled smile, and his worn green eyes looking to her plaintively. And for the smallest fraction of a second, her breath hitched. In another lifetime, he could’ve meant something else to her. In another lifetime, the same expression in those eyes would be –

With a blink, she let go and lost it, as easy as it is to forget an old dream, the ghost of an ache, the feeling of a phantom touch.

 

She cocked her head, looking him over. After a beat, she simply replied, “Well. I suppose a consolatory pat is in order.”

She moved forward and theatrically halted, eyes glinting with amusement.

 

“You _did_ remember the—“

                                                            “The chili powder? Yes. Bloody hell, woman! All I ask for is a little _sympathy_.”

 

She laughed relentlessly then, eliciting a few chuckles from him in reply as she began forcing his dripping trenchcoat off him, easier once he cooperated and began to shrug out of it for her. Sonali chattered away as she hung his coat, and he, in return, watched her with a more considerable modicum of patience. 

“Yes, yes, I am terribly sorry for your troubles, Arthur. But do you really expect me to take you in with open arms if you hadn’t brought what I told you to?”

(He raised a brow imperiously, lips slightly parted in mild surprise and amusement. This only reinvigorated her, continuing sunnily.)

“I mean, _I_ came back from work as well! And here I am, toiling at home right afterwards! And they say women are the weak ones. Ha!” 

 

She stood before him. He gave her no courtesy, no bowing of the head to accommodate what he referred to as her preciously _small_ stature.

With an impatient huff, she tilted her head up slightly to meet his gaze.

He smirked.

 

“Anyways, dinner will be ready in 30 or less. You’re welcome to help.”

A beat. The thought barely settled before she opened her mouth again, laughter blurring the edges of her words.

“On _second thought_ , I’m not sure if I and the curry could really stomach your presence in the kitchen. So please— _don’t follow me_.”

 

His thin lips curled into an impish smile in reply as he watched her walk away, braid swishing behind her, a faint perfume of jasmine and sandalwood left in her wake.

And as she disappeared into the kitchen, it was he then that froze in place. His mind idly lingered upon the remaining fragments of her speech. How her mouth possessively curved around ‘home,’ the sheer simplicity, the assuredness of it was enough to daze him. Her voice curled around the words with a lilting, honeyed cadence that he had become accustomed to as of late.

 

Could this place, this unsanctified ground, his isle of cold greys and rain, be _home_? Home for her?

_And how about him? Could he be home too?_

 

The mere thought of it confounded him, left him punch-drunk.

He watched her feverishly stirring the pots in his meek, little kitchen; it had nearly shrunk at the sight of her, never having been witness to such a forceful presence within its meager walls. Yet within days of her arrival, it became illuminated with bright reds and oranges, coming alive in the wake of her sheer vigour and force of life.

He watched her, animatedly tasting and pouring and stirring, nearly bursting with a passionate vitality he could not hope to put into words.

And as he closed his eyes, for a moment, forgot where he was, who he was. He dropped his weights and limitations, only for a moment. And he named the emotion that made his palms sweaty, that pooled up at the bottom of his stomach and filled him with an incalculable longing. His limbs began to move automatically; he was only vaguely aware that he was moving. Moving into the kitchen, behind her. She was close enough to touch, close enough to –

A piece broke off, a choked sound that slipped out before he realized what he was doing.

 

(“Sonali, I—“)

 

He named it, the emotion that struck him soundly in the chest as she suddenly turned, lowering a spoon from her lips and looking up at him. She smiled at him, albeit confused, her expression curiously unguarded.

 

(“Arthur?”)

 

He knew what it was.

 

(“I was just wondering again; when exactly will dinner be ready?”)

 

And he swallowed it. He swallowed it, quietly and bitterly.

 

Before it could sit and grow outwards, before its tendrils could climb and twist and tighten around his heart and give him a false sense of belonging, deluding him into thinking that this could be anything more than a silenced pang, a stifled yearning.

 

(“Soon.”)

 

Because the shine in his eyes was exactly what she thought it was. Because it meant too much and not enough. Because this could never be home, and neither could he.

Because bridges had been burnt by his own hand and he hadn’t the right to want so badly as he did.

 

Even if, miraculously, she still stood, waiting for him on the opposite side. Quietly yearning, reaching across the fissure.

 


End file.
